The concept of bought vs sold in solar power

September 13, 2012
| Sullivan Solar Power

Sullivan Solar Power does not hire salespeople or have a sales department. The confusing concept of bought vs sold comes into play here; I say confusing because the line separating the two blurs the deeper it's analyzed. In the simplest terms; if the transaction required a salesperson, it was sold.

For example, my wife had never been to Tijuana after living in San Diego for 27 years so I took her for the afternoon last Saturday. Revolution Avenue is lined with small shops selling goods everyone has a critical need for; ceramic Bart Simpsons, ninja accessories, M-80s... As we walked by, vendors spring to life and did everything short of physical force to get us inside. Well, you can't come away with the full Tijuana experience without visiting one of these shops, so we allowed ourselves to be talked into entering one. Once inside, the vendor's mission changed dramatically to figuring out what we were interested in. He watched every movement with laser focus, waiting like a vulture for any indication. My wife leaned over slightly to look at a silver bracelet and the vendor exploded into action. Within 5 seconds every piece of jewelry had been pulled from the case and bracelets placed in rows on my wife's wrists. Kidding-you-not, he sent his assistant running to their sister store to gather more. One-sided bargaining was taking place; he dropped his price from $30 to $15 without either of us having said a word or chosen a product. My wife picked a bracelet and we bought it, or more accurately, it was sold to us*.

An example of bought? My dad has an old pickup truck that sits in the driveway, it moves only for scheduled maintenance (odd concept). A neighbor put a note on the windshield one day asking if he would be willing to sell it. If my dad agreed, the truck would be bought.

Is solar power bought or sold? It requires a "salesperson", so technically it's sold. But that doesn't feel right. We don't have salespeople; we have customer advocates. They aren't trained in sales tactics and strategy; they are trained in matching a potential customer's individual needs to an appropriate solar panel system. Their job is to educate and guide people through the process of making an objective financial decision. If going solar will meet their financial goals, we are happy to move forward. If not, we won't sell them a system; we will literally refuse.

The concept of bought instead of sold is woven into the fabric of Sullivan Solar Power. We are not a sales company; we are a design and build company. We want to grow the business through installing more solar, not selling more solar - there is a difference. This is how you make happy solar power customers.

Sullivan Solar Power does not hire salespeople or have a sales department; it has Project Developers and a Project Development department. If you have been shopping around for solar and feel like you are getting sold, come see us, and decide if you want to buy instead.

* We made this purchase out of guilt, feeling obligated after witnessing such effort.

Sullivan Solar Power

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